The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

22072008

A friend lent me this book recently.

I always see this at the bookstore, browse through a few times, but it never attracted me enough to want to purchase it.

The concept of the book revolves around what makes certain situation change drastically and quickly from one point to another. It explores the idea of how are trends, epidemics, or social situations are started. How little things make the difference.

The main concepts are:

– Having the right people: Connectors, Maverns, Salesmen
– Stickiness of content
– The context of environment
– The magic 150 (any group larger, it would be hard to control the organisation or group by effective means)

My thoughts on the book:

I was bored. So much so I ended up skimming through the book.

The concept was interesting initially but it felt so draggy and repetitive as the chapters go on. This was a book that presented a lot of different case studies, but I’m not really sure if they do highlight any point that the author wanted to make.

The writing style was not as engaging as I hope it would be. It’s like a cut and paste book with references and case studies from various sources put together in a book.

That pretty much sums it up for me. That’s the reason why I have never wanted to buy it from the bookstore, despite it being a bestseller.

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3 responses

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Lou(10:45:46) :

you’re not alone. i was bored too. i didn’t make it to the end. i became skeptical when his spiel revolves around his observations. nothing’s based on real research data or studies to support his claims. you’ll notice it’s the case with all his other books – blink and the new one called 10,000 hrs or sth. it’s just hype.

Unless you’ve studied social science or psychology, this book should not bore you because of it insights and discovered phenonemons. If I remember it right, he states classic experiments such as Milgram, etc., so Lou is wrong.

You should check out his latest book, seriously.

He’s one of the most wanted keynote speakers in the world, so don’t blame one book that you’ve “skimmed through”.